DENVER — A person accused of tampering with a voting machine throughout Colorado’s major election is mentally incompetent and can’t proceed with courtroom proceedings, a decide dominated Thursday.
On the request of Richard Patton’s lawyer and prosecutors, Decide William Alexander additionally ordered that Patton endure outpatient psychological well being therapy in hopes of constructing him nicely sufficient so he may be prosecuted.
The decide’s ruling adopted an analysis by an professional who discovered that Patton was mentally incompetent. To be thought-about legally competent to proceed, folks accused of crimes have to be deemed in a position to perceive proceedings and assist in their very own protection by with the ability to talk with their attorneys.
Patton’s lawyer had requested the analysis however no particulars about why have been launched. Patton has not been requested to enter a plea but and the case in opposition to him is not going to resume till he’s discovered to be competent.
Patton was arrested Nov. 3 and later charged with tampering with voting tools, which state lawmakers this 12 months made a felony punishable by as much as three years in jail. It was previously a misdemeanor offense with a penalty of as much as 364 days in jail.
In line with his arrest affidavit, Patton confirmed as much as vote in particular person on the final day of the first election, June 28. He made some ballot employees nervous after asking about what sort of safety there was on the voting heart due to threats that had been made in opposition to election employees. An election employee escorted Patton to a voting machine, confirmed him the right way to use it, and he was in a position to make use of it to fill out a poll and print out a marked paper poll to solid, investigators mentioned.
After Patton voted, an individual who went to scrub the voting machine found an error message saying {that a} USB system had been detected, in accordance with the affidavit. Different election employees mentioned the safety seal on the machine was both broken or had been tampered with and a USB port pulled out, it mentioned.
Patton denied any wrongdoing in an interview with The Pueblo Chieftain in November. He mentioned he requested assist from an election employee when he voted as a result of he’s dyslexic and accused the employee of inserting one thing into the machine.